Market Opportunity

Current first line treatments for metastatic
colorectal cancer (mCRC) have improved overall patient
survival time to 30 months, but few options remain if tumor progression
continues. Diagnostic testing for biomarkers has emerged as a promising
approach to tailor individualized treatments to improve clinical outcomes. However,
even as the market for cancer pharmacodiagnostics is predicted to grow to $1 billion
by 2021, only a few reliable biomarkers such as KRAS has been validated to
distinguish therapeutic response to anti-EGFR drugs in mCRC patients.

USC Solution

USC
researchers have discovered novel SNP biomarkers located in TLR genes that can
predict patient outcomes of cetuximab or irinotecan-bevacizumab based chemotherapy in mCRC subtypes. These SNP biomarkers were
discovered through meta-analysis of patient cohorts with wild type KRAS that
responded positively to anti-EGFR drugs. Evaluation of these biomarkers are
easily detected by PCR based diagnostics.